EU military attaches walk out at Iran parade

Iranmania:

EU military attaches walked out in protest at a parade in Tehran Thursday after ballistic missiles were rolled past carrying vitriolic anti-US and Israeli slogans, diplomats told AFP.

"There was a common position among the European Union members that, if the military parade included any slogans that attacked our allies, we would leave," said a diplomat.

"The military attaches from the embassies of France, Italy, Greece and Poland were present at the parade, and when they saw the slogans they promptly left," said another diplomat. READ MORE

At the parade, Iran showed off six of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles sporting banners reading "Death to America", "We will crush America under our feet", "Death to Israel" and "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth".

"They may be just slogans, but for us they are unacceptable," one of the diplomats said.

The military event was held just south of Tehran to mark the start of "Sacred Defence Week", dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians killed after the forces of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded in It also coincided with mounting tensions between Iran and the EU over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.